New Hanover school officials nix Saturday makeup time

Saturday

Feb 15, 2014 at 3:56 PMFeb 15, 2014 at 5:15 PM

Schools instead will tack on an extra 30 minutes to every school day during the month of March

By Pressley BairdPressley.Baird@StarNewsOnline.com

Attention, New Hanover County students: You can sleep in next Saturday.The New Hanover County Board of Education unanimously decided against having students attend school on Feb. 22 to make up for a snow day. Instead, schools will tack on an extra 30 minutes to every school day during March, the board decided Saturday.The extra time – 15 minutes at the beginning of the day and 15 minutes at the end of the day – will add 10 hours of instructional time, putting schools over the state required 1,025 hours of yearly instruction, Superintendent Tim Markley said at the board’s Saturday meeting.Students in New Hanover County have missed six days this year for snow and ice. State law requires the missed days to be made up.New Hanover County is using a combination of methods to make up its time. Students missed four days during January’s ice and snow storm. Those days will be made up using full school days. Those dates are Feb. 14, March 28 and June 12, which were originally scheduled to be half days, and June 13, which will now become the last day of school.When students missed two additional days during last week’s ice storm, administrators planned for to make up one of those days on Saturday, Feb. 22. Instead, Markley asked the board to eliminate the Saturday makeup day and add extra time to each school day in order to make up both missed days. He said Saturday that when he asked principals across the county what they’d rather do, adding time was overwhelmingly preferred.“It is not a perfect solution, but at this point, I don’t think there is a perfect solution,” Markley said. “It has the least impact on current school operations and gets us back some of that time.”The biggest change schools will see with the extra time will be adjustments in bus schedules. Markley said that wouldn’t have a big overall impact on transportation.Gov. Pat McCrory said at a Friday press conference that he would be meeting with school districts this week to discuss flexibility in making up missed days. Markley said the school district will consider amending its plan if the state offers that flexibility.Board chairman Don Hayes said Saturday he felt that Markley’s plan was the best solution, noting that the state calendar law makes it difficult for schools to handle several makeup days like they’ve had this year.And while board member Lisa Estep voted for Markley’s plan, she said Saturday that her twins would have rather attended school on Saturday. They wanted to get it over with, she said.Some parents agreed with Estep’s children. Kim Dziadek Hanson posted on the StarNews Facebook page that she and her two children didn’t like the extra time option.“(The district) should have consulted the public a bit more,” she wrote. “This throws off everyone’s morning routine, including bus drivers and teachers. I would prefer more time in the afternoon or the Saturday!”Kristin Murrisky Aktas also wrote that she wasn’t a fan of adding time to the day.“I was fine with a half or full day on Saturday. Did (the district) not think about the families’ morning and afternoon routine first?” she wrote. “Not happy with this one. Think they made this mess worse.”But at least one parent was a fan of the longer days. Kar W. Grenyion wrote that she and her middle-schooler liked the extra time.“Forget (Saturday),” she wrote.